The Newswire is Not Required

By David Barkoe

Published September 29, 2022

I’ve got to admit, Summer wasn’t too shabby. Our team secured an incredible amount of media coverage. And those samples of coverage – The Today Show, EMSWorld, Fox News, Solutions Review, and Cheddar News – all had one thing in common: writing a press release had no part in the placement. 

Let’s face it, most press releases placed on a newswire won’t turn into media coverage. Journalists don’t wait for press releases to appear on a wire to cover a story; PR pros shouldn’t be calling to ask if a press release was received. 

Today, you build proactive media relationships through establishing a frequent dialog and giving journalists ongoing reasons to engage — newswire not required. Everything evolves, including PR, and as part of the natural evolution I believe the newswire is now irrelevant. Below I outline why. Also, how to make the most of it if you must use it and what newswires should do to future-proof their business model.

Why Newswire Distribution May Be Irrelevant

The newswire was built on the thesis that one-to-many communication was the most effective strategy. Reach as many reporters as you can with your news, and hope that some will pick it up. If the initial list is large enough, when even a small percentage of reporters on that list writes something, it may satisfy a client’s needs.

The newswire game is also one of watch and wait. Place your press release on the newswire and see what happens. They aren’t in the business of inserting you into the conversation. You’ll never know if a journalist viewed your press release or even if they have any level of interest.

A lot has changed since then. Media proliferated – social media, newsletters, YouTube series – yet one-to-one communication is expected. Personalization matters in reporter interactions as much as it works in customer interactions. Quantity no longer beats quality, and the wires hedged their bets in the reverse.

Quality comes from: 

• Precisely targeting a reporter in a way that shows you know their work (not just their name). I make the distinction because early in my career, a boss taught me to include a reporter’s name in the subject line. It’s still a great strategy, but these days it’s not enough. Journalists want to understand you’ve done your research on them, so we like to comment on past stories or even reference their dog if they post frequently about them on social media.

• Taking note of their communications preferences and meeting them where they are. These days we are just as successful pitching reporters on Twitter or LinkedIn as we are via email. If email is the place, focus on the art of the follow up.

• Being a source of valuable information versus just a source of company news. This can be through tactics like trendjacking, injecting your company into breaking news, or trend spotting, alerting a reporter to something you see bubbling up in a clients industry. Or other sustainable PR strategies.

Making the Newswire Work for You

Here are a couple of situations where the newswire does work: Once in a blue moon, a reporter may be writing a large-scale feature about an industry and happens to find a relevant press release you posted on the wire. The reporter may reach out to you. Newswires can help with a reporter’s discovery process. 

They also tend to drive traffic to your site when you link to it in the release and make your company visible during simple Google searches.

And, let’s be honest, sometimes a client does require the newswire — primarily if they’re going public or are about to go public.

The question becomes: what are the ways we can supplement any newswire distribution efforts so it’s not just wasted dollars? Start with these three strategies:

• Don’t waste the written word. If you’re putting a release on the newswire, make sure it’s a good one. Be clear about the news and why it matters, use quotes to show off personality and drive home the vision, and avoid jargon. No reporter wants to read about another “innovative” product. Describe how it’s innovative by answering the question: what is new that has never been done before? Every opportunity to communicate something is an opportunity to communicate it well or poorly. Choose well.

• Think of newswire distribution as a tactic in the strategy, not the strategy itself. The announcement strategy is in the targeting, the potential pre-pitching, and the way you may choose to drip or parcel out the news to target media. It’s also in how you tie the news to larger trends to drive coverage way beyond the date of distribution.

• Develop a content strategy around the news. Surround sound the announcement through owned and operated channels like a blog or social media post from the executive spokesperson. Use each channel for what it’s best and take it a level deeper than you did in the release. For example, if your newswire release is about a new company acquisition, write a Twitter thread from the CEO that outlines the why behind the acquisition or a personal LinkedIn post that shares how the CEO evaluates whether or not an acquisition makes sense. You have to remarket the content in order to justify writing a press release. 

Making Newswires Relevant Again

I’ve been toying with the question: can newswire distribution be relevant again? Or has their time come and gone? Here’s where I’ve landed:

The easiest way for newswires to make themselves relevant is to more closely align with the media databases. Cision owns PR Newswire. Cision is arguably the most widely used media database in PR. So, why not integrate the systems and allow PR professionals to refine distributions not just to the “Technology” or “Healthcare” or “Hispanic” circuits? Instead, enable us to get our releases into the inboxes of the right reporters vs. potentially using bloated lists with lots of waste.

I’m also excited about how AI will revolutionize this industry like it’s doing in so many others. Paul Roetzer, founder of the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute, says he imagines a day where AI will help us build smarter media databases. AI systems can potentially start with the pitch – instead of the reporter’s beat – analyze the pitch, and then create a list of targets from that pitch. 

For example, startup reporters come in all shapes and sizes. Some cover founder stories, others focus on VC news, and others on culture. If you input “I want to pitch a story about how an entrepreneur is rethinking employee incentive programs,” AI can help identify the best reporters based on those nuances. It would leave the reporter connection-building – the “human” parts – to us.

I’ve seen great strides in smart sentiment analysis from the newswires — less on smart targeting. Since precision is one of the keys to quality over quantity, I hope we will get there soon.

With PR being more “public” than it ever has been before, we need to rise with the times. Newswires were a good gear in the engine, but today they are worn out. Our companies are more than a standalone press release. The newswire may not be required, but a sustainable PR strategy is to rise above the noise.